


Lay it on my heart

by Kale12



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Wonder Woman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Single Parents, not quite the brady bunch au i keep threatening to write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 04:02:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8829739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kale12/pseuds/Kale12
Summary: Newly-widowed Diana Trevor comes back to Gotham. Bruce definitely isn't still carrying a torch.





	

She knows she’s upset, knows the Gotham traffic blaring around her, and the sun pounding through the window, and Donna’s escalating tantrum are all slowly frying her nerves, but she can’t quite feel it. There’s a curious detached quality to it all, as though she’s floating, watching herself in the smoking car on the side of the highway, holding up morning traffic.

 _Resignation_ , she thinks, rummaging for apple juice, animal crackers, anything to pacify the four year-old bellowing to get out of her car seat. She wonders if good mothers fantasize about giving their children benadryl. She’s fairly certain Polly did, but she’s not sure her own mother is the best baseline for comparison.

They both startle at the knock at her window, Donna’s screams lapsing into blessed silence. Diana opens the door quickly, stepping out of the car and nearly into the arms of the broadest man she’s ever seen. Tall, too. Taller than her, which was hardly common. She’s forced to tilt her head up to get a good look at his face; her bones hum all at once. There’s something about the shock of thick black hair, and the wide, rough jaw that tugs at her memory.  

“Ms. Trevor? I’m with the towing company…” he begins, trailing off when he finally gets a good look at her face. “You’re Steve’s girl,” he blurts out, and a little stab of pain goes through her.

“You have the advantage of me,” she says, apologetically. “I just moved back to Gotham, were you a friend of Steve’s?”

“Something like that,” he says wryly. “I played football for North.”

It snaps into place then, his face as she last saw it, beardless and unlined and still so careful, even back then, pressing a kiss to her palm before leaving her on a dance floor in the old Gotham Central High gymnasium. It had burned and she had stared after him as he walked away, until Steve had come up to twirl her into the next number. “Bruce Wayne,” she breathes. “You were the quarterback. Steve _hated_ you,” she laughs. “Almost as much he liked you, I think.”

His mouth quirks up slightly. “Getting beat in a championship game will do that, I think. You won the year after, though.”

“Yes, but I think he was disappointed that he never got to beat _you_.” She grins up at him, and his answering smile sends a little tremor through her. Thankfully, Donna takes that moment to make her presence known, and Diana fairly flies to the other side of the car, busying herself in unbuckling the ancient car seat, keeping her head down until she thinks the flush has faded.

“Do you guys need a ride back?” Bruce asks, shading his eyes from the sun.

“That would be great,” Diana says sincerely. “Let me just get Donna’s car seat.”

“No need. My godson’s outgrown his, but I never got around to pulling it out.” He reaches out for the toddler; it’s such a natural gesture that she hands her daughter over unthinkingly, all the more surprising for Donna’s lack of protest.

“My god, you’ve tamed the beast,” she says in disbelief, her daughter content to regard the giant stranger with wide, assessing eyes.

“Girls like me,” he smirks, and she finds it all too easy to believe. No woman could resist those shoulders. “She’s got the look of you,” he says, swinging the door of the tow truck open and buckling the child back in before brushing the curls away from her face.

“Yes, no chance she was switched at birth, I’m afraid,” she says, reaching for the passenger door, and realizing that Bruce was already holding it open. “She’s got her dad’s personality, though.”

“Steve’s.”  

“Yes,” she says, more tranquil than she feels. Bruce takes a long look at her, before shutting the door gently behind her, muting the sounds of engines and car horns around them.

-

He’s thankful for the distraction as he hitches the sedan to his truck, a brief respite from the living, breathing memory sitting in his front seat. With her daughter. With _Steve's_ daughter. Of course Steve married her, he was too smart not to.

Diana Prince, brave and lovely and firmly out of reach; she was Trevor’s girl before Bruce even knew her name, before he came across her for the first time berating a pair of jocks behind the bleachers, shielding a skinny freshman behind her. Bruce was on the visiting team, had wandered out looking for a quiet place to stretch, and fell head over heels before she was even halfway through her tirade. She didn’t need any help, either. The bullies slunk off, and she herded the younger one away before Bruce could think to move.

He’d seen her later that night, at a party after the game, making her way through the crowd. His stomach clenched each time she smiled. He wanted her to smile at him, was afraid that she would. He figured he was a dead man either way.

“Drink this and stop staring at her,” Kent had said, pressing a cold beer can into his hand.

“What’s her name?” He didn’t take his eyes off her.

“Seriously, Bruce, she’s dating Steve Trevor, so _extremely_ off limits unless you’re trying to pick a fight.”

“What’s her name, Kent?”

Clark sighed. “Diana Prince. We’ve worked together a few times for student government stuff. She’s sweet. A little intense.”

“How long’s she been with Trevor.”

“Dunno. But whatever, it’s high school. You’ll get your chance if you just wait long enough.”

He doesn’t, though. So he’d bottled it up, managing to forget the dizziness and adrenaline until he’d see her again, and each time it shook him up, leaving him cold and sweating afterwards.

He’s feeling a little shaky now, even in the heat, sweat making his hands slippery as he makes sure everything’s screwed in place, cables secure.

She’s not the same, he tells himself. She’s a little more worn, softer, not the glittering girl he was mad for as a kid. It shouldn’t be more appealing.

 _She’s married_ , he tells himself. Still out of reach.

He swings himself into the truck, getting ready to start the trek back to his shop. Diana’s on her phone, texting rapidly. “So how is Steve? Last I heard he was in the Air Force. Career army?” he asks, figuring it was best to splash a little cold water on his past self.

Her fingers still, her chin lifts. “Steve was deployed to Afghanistan a couple years ago, right after Donna was born. His plane was shot down.”

Bruce feels like he’s been punched in the gut. “Fuck,” he says, because words feel a little inadequate for how his world’s been shaken up this morning.

“That kind of sums up my year, yeah,” Diana says, smiling a little tiredly up at him, and it’s all he can do not to touch her.

“I’m sorry,” he says, instead, and casts about for an acceptable change of topic.

“Gotham’s changed quite a bit since I left,” Diana says, throwing out a lifeline that he grasps immediately, and the conversation for the rest of the ride is light and easy.

She’s easy to talk to. He forces himself to look ahead, to focus on the road instead of on her mouth - mobile and plush and utterly arresting - and pulls up in front of her apartment building all too soon.

“I’ll give you a call when the car’s done,” he says.

“That’d be great.” She smiles, and his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “It was really good to see you again.”

“You, too,” he says, as she shuts the door gently. Donna waves back at him solemnly.

He waits till she’s at her door, well out of range, to say her name out loud. It still makes him dizzy.


End file.
